


Cleaning

by Dystomatopoeia



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1984 Vibes, Abuse of Authority, Balkan folklore, Disturbing Themes, Dystopia, Government Conspiracy, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Imbalance, Romani Character, Slavery, Slavic Folklore, Suffering, Survival, cultural erasure, in which the hero is a janitor who just wants to live, loosely inspired by papers please
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:19:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22569250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dystomatopoeia/pseuds/Dystomatopoeia
Summary: Even deep within the statehouse of a secretive, tyrannical regime, someone has to clean the floors.Once a dancer in the prime of his passion, Myk scrubs the past blank.
Relationships: Acro Dancer/Opera Singer, Mikhail/Eliška
Comments: 14
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

Myk could not dance, but he could clean the floors. He could scrub the courthouse steps every early morning, until he had erased a thousand bootprints of mud and slush. When a thousand more replaced them in the late morning, the afternoon, and the evening, he could do it again. He could work his palm against the limestone until every ground-in stain was erased, until every step in the flight of thirty-five gleamed in the winter sun, smelling of sharp sanitizer.

Myk counted the thirty-five with his knees, sliding them across the step, and up (one), across, and up (two). Standing was not included in the protocol of floor-cleaning. Kneeling was encouraged. The nerves in his legs – those which worked – were dead-numb by step thirty-five. His pants adopted a frozen slurry of chemical water by step ten. Any earlier and Myk might have been inefficient; any later and he was unthorough. The supervisor would inform him of either. A black camera lens would stare down on the steps, and citations would issue from a black speaker as necessary.

Myk had scrubbed so thoroughly that he was assigned to the courthouse interior. He could scour the ornate tiles with focus and vigor, hand against rag, rag against floor. Acrid chemicals squeezed from bucket to grout, to skin. Myk could keep them around his palm, avoiding the thin skin on his wrist, which burned and peeled easily.

Myk could not dance, but once, he traced the steps of a jig with his scrubbing hand. Broad, sweeping scrubs, short-sharp scrubs….

“A citation has been issued for your performance.”

Myk kept his head down, but his eyes caught the glare of the black lens above him.

A flat in the courthouse basement could shelter him at night. The electric doorbolt locked itself at twelve. Once Myk had arrived too late, and a black speaker had directed him to the courthouse steps, where he waited until morning. Myk had not repeated the mistake.

Myk could feel safe in his flat, and sometimes almost warm. He could sleep on his cot, but sleeping in the space beneath it became his habit. He remembered the last night spent in his bed, a place where warmth was found easily. Remembering made him wring his raw hands, and then he didn’t feel so safe. So he slept hidden away. Hidden from all but the black camera above his door.

On most nights, it sat still, but Myk had woken to the clicks of movement, and saw it turning in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Summer arrived at the statehouse, blazing warm light through its windows. In this brief time of year, the cold water could feel pleasant. No more slush was tracked into the atrium. Instead, Myk scrubbed away smears of dark dirt and bits of moss. He could keep the floors spotless, erase every step. New shoes would shuffle inside and find their places behind closed doors, and Myk would keep their mark unseen, even as their number increased by the week.

He wondered who was appointing these new arrivals. Wondered if he should be wondering….

In every empty, bootprint-peppered room, hanging lamps blazed tirelessly overhead. Myk could focus on the cool tiles beneath his hands, and ignore how the light beamed down on his black uniform, warming his long sleeves and long pants. There was too much to clean, no time to consider the heat.

The empty meeting halls sat bare and stifling through the day. Fans whirred behind every closed door, the state officials’ offices where Myk was not welcome until evening. By the time the doors were left open, the fans were still.

On the hottest day of the year, Myk had failed to ignore how the sweat stuck his forelocks to his face. As he raked a sodden rag across the atrium floor, he would swipe the dark strands behind his ear. By the fifth swipe, he heard it:

“A citation has been issued for improper grooming.”

Myk stared at the floor and breathed out. Watched as sweat dripped from his chin to the tiles. Took up the rag before one citation could become two.

He imagined the face of his supervisor. A computer came to mind, not a body that breathed or blinked, but something that clicked and catalogued. The distorted voice that called down at him could belong to anyone, he guessed. The supervisor could be a different person each day, and they could watch any number of workers besides himself, barking at every one of them in turn.

Speculating kept Myk awake through hours of scrubbing, but no inward thought could pierce the secret reality, the truth behind the black cameras and speakers that loomed over him.

Myk’s flat included a shower head and a drain in the corner. On the hottest night, he had cropped his hair over the drain, kneeling, as other positions were no longer comfortable. Chin-length clumps of hair became cheek length, became something scruffy and undefinable, without any mirror to show him.

Myk knew that he was changed, and did not want to see himself. His hair had gone the way of his name, his posture, his duties. Reduced.

Myk could avoid thinking of his reflection. Without the distraction of a mirror, he could keep his mind on other tasks.

Cold weather returned with a vengeance. The fans sat permanently still, but Myk could still hear the clicks of keyboards and the creak of chairs behind the office doors.

Once, a door had opened against Myk’s pail of sanitizer, spilling it across the hallway. Offices could not open so early in the day – no such thing was scheduled. So Myk had flinched at the disturbance, falling back on his hands. He looked up to see a man in a blue suit and large glasses.

“Shhhh,” warned pale lips, and a gloved hand beckoned in toward the office.

Myk could be certain that a black camera above was watching him, watching how he sat still and stared at the figure that kept himself hidden behind the heavy door. He did not have to look up to know this.

“Come in.”

The room behind the door looked dark. Myk’s cold hands clenched against the floor. He hesitated to speak, but remembered that he could shake his head.

“There will be no citations in here. No cameras. But I have something important for you to do.” Eyes squinted behind gray lenses.

“You will do as I say.”

A dry feeling crawled from Myk’s tongue down his throat. He sat forward again – retrieved his bucket and cloth, each motion slow but not halting. He was pulled into a room he could not see, the door shut between himself and the cameras that had recorded his every move. For the first time since Myk was not Myk, he was unseen.

The man in blue tugged a lamp chain, and sharp, yellow light illuminated dark blood across the floor.

“You can clean up this unfortunate accident, yes?”

A red pool stood inches from Myk’s feet. A chair sat in its midst, stained as if painted in blood. He saw broad smears trailing away from it, across the white tile floor, around the desk that occupied the room’s center. A closet sat shut at the trail’s end.

Myk wrung his burned hands together, opening his mouth to speak but gritting his teeth before a sound emerged.

“You look scared.” The man looked from Myk to his watch, and back up.

“Let me simplify this for you. The room must be spotless. Clean it and all will be well for you.”

Myk’s bucket ran red. Amid the pool he discovered teeth and fingernails. Inch by inch, Myk made the floor clean. No cameras followed his progress; instead, the suited man sat behind his desk and watched him.

With the pool finally gone, Myk moved on to the smears. Rounding the desk, he felt eyes just above him.

“I remember you,” said the man. “The capitol theater. You danced _Kazachok_ with that beautiful woman in the red shoes. And you performed some of those foreign acrobatic routines.”

Myk had not stopped scrubbing. He could not dare to. He could not dance, but he could clean the floors.

“Yes, I am certain. I had the front row. I would not mistake you. Look at me.”

The demand thrown amid reminiscence made Myk start. He looked up at the glasses which bore into him with more intensity than any spotlight.

“It is better this way.” The suited man nodded down. “At last, you have labor with purpose.”

The pale lips smirked, and Myk turned away from them, swiped a sleeve across his face, and set his raw hands to work.

“Don’t miss a single drop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -reviews are appreciated. thank you for reading!  
> -the next chapter will include a development of character relationships, and possibly some glimpses into myk's earlier days


	3. Chapter 3

Myk hadn’t wanted or expected to cry, but one by one, the tears slipped free. Curled up in the narrow space beneath his bed, he caught them, smeared them away.

Myk could not know who he cried for – who might have sat in that chair and bled away. Some politician who had fallen out of favor came to mind: a man hardly different from the one in the blue suit, only less lucky, or less powerful.

The assumption could be false. Myk pictured someone like himself, a scared laborer, a person reduced, counting their teeth and nails as they were ripped away.

Whoever they could be, the suited man had erased them. Myk had been his tool in that endeavor, and now they were gone.

Myk wondered if one day, it would be his blood staining the tiles. If it was, he knew that it would be erased just as easily – maybe by someone who cried less easily, someone whose heart didn’t race at the sight of blood.

Cold weather bittered further with the approach of true winter. The number of footprints that tracked through the statehouse had thinned. The new tracks, having arrived earlier in the year, had remained. The old disappeared.

From the speakers above, Myk’s supervisor barked down, issuing citations for even a moment’s hesitation. Greater efficiency was demanded. Sluggishness could not be tolerated.

Where Myk could save time, he could not save his hands. Pausing to wipe them free of sanitizer had once been a blessing. Now he scrubbed on without an instant’s mercy. They prickled until the skin began to lift and peel away, soggy with chemicals. Then they burned.

When the last inch of the statehouse floors was wiped clean, Myk doubled over, pressing his forehead to his knees. His hands trembled as he wrung them against his coat. Some bits of strength gathered up in him with time, and his distant wishes of returning to his flat, to the almost-warm place beneath his bed, seemed to become manageable.

But as he moved to stand, the speaker crackled, and spoke down at him.

“Halt. Your hours are not yet up.”

Myk knelt on the floor until the pale evening light had drained from the statehouse windows. Until only the overhead lamps stood out reflected on black panes.

Myk could not feel at ease when surrounded by dark windows. They reminded him of the dark lenses always clicking overhead, only larger, almost like the dark masks on the men who had arrived at his house in the night….

Not his house. No longer. Myk could not live in a house. Myk could not pretend that he had earned one, that he had truly _worked_ for one. Because he had not. Maybe a silly, decadent, childish young man named Mikhail had once danced his way to superficial wealth and fame, and called an impractical townhouse his home, relishing in its tidy floorplan and stylish dark brick exterior. Myk was no such fool. Myk could clean the floors, and rest in the reasonable comfort of his state-assigned flat, for three hundred minutes every night. As long as a supervisor had approved it.

The night inched on without any such approval. With nothing more to clean, Myk stared at the windows. His own blinking gave the only proof that time itself had not stopped.

When a voice broke the silence, Myk jolted.

“There you are. Exactly as requested.”

Turning, he could see the suited man at the other end of the hall, in full view of the cameras above.

“Some new matters have been sorted, and I will need your help again,” the man said. “Follow me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -another shorty. i dunno but this just felt like the right place to end the chapter. more is already drafted though


	4. Chapter 4

Stiff joints cranked back to life as Myk gathered his supplies and pulled himself from the cold floor. He stared at the bespectacled face across from him, remembering the recent day when his bucket had run red.

“No need to gawk as if I’m the Premier himself.”

Myk could feel his own expression turn quizzical. The suited man barked a laugh.

“Don’t be ridiculous! I am not him. Shouldn’t you know that?”

The question was answered with a quick nod.

“Good. Of course. I am the Premier’s humble enforcer. Executor of the people’s will.”

 _Executor_.

Myk was beckoned around a number of corners, until the enforcer arrived at an open doorway. Myk remembered this place, had worked a rag across the threshold on every last day of his recent memory – and the door had always remained shut. Past it stretched a staircase that Myk had never been ordered to clean.

Behind him, a camera clicked and whirred. Myk couldn’t help but dart his eyes in its direction.

The enforcer caught them.

“Do not worry. The little fools behind the cameras have no authority over me.”

Down the stairs they went, winding into the darkness. Myk could remember old folk tales of nasty creatures who dwelled underground. Creatures of such sinister power that grown men were helpless to oppose them.

As he stared down the depths of a fresh, crimson puddle, he imagined that a _Bludička_ leered back at him. Surely she would pull him in below the surface. Drag him to death with her.

With her….

With Eliška, who had sung the highest notes of _Rusalka’s_ Song to the Moon in her native tongue, without a shred of fear, and had captured Mikhail’s heart in an instant. Eliška, who had shared with him romantic nights in the city, adventures down countryside roads – and eventually the gaudy brick townhouse, which she had chosen herself.

Myk could not think of her now. He would forbid himself, even as the imagined face in the blood took on her every feature.

Stroke by stroke, he scrubbed the face away, until the dark basement floor gleamed spotless.

“Excellent.” The enforcer. “You waste no time.”

Myk gave a nod.

“Not that any hurry was necessary. My work here is mostly done. But after so many days without any cleaning, the basement took on…a smell.”

Myk finally looked around. The basement chamber sat bare, though the bloodstains – now erased – had outlined the legs of furniture and the bodies of unknown people. Myk did not want to imagine how the room had looked before it was emptied. The blood had told him more than he wanted to know.

“Before you leave, there is something else.”

Myk stared up at the gray lenses. He moved only his eyes, not daring to move further.

“You danced for more than just the stage, yes? I am interested in learning something. With my recent promotions, I am expected to attend formal events. Dancing with partners is a component. So tomorrow – you could teach me what you know.”

Myk swiped a hand over his tired face, and nodded on reflex, still processing the unusual demand.

That night, it occurred to Myk: how much time had passed since he’d waltzed through a dance hall, cradling Eliška’s waist, holding her hand. The parties they attended could not possibly reflect the formal, highbrow affairs that the enforcer spoke of; instead they were loud, lively, diverse with peoples who expressed their cultures freely. Mikhail had still felt like a king in the warmth of Eliška’s presence, graced with the gentle tones of her accented speech as she told him she wanted to stay up all night – city curfew be damned.

“Regimes change, but the people won’t change with them,” she had declared. “We’re still paying taxes, aren’t we? And they still applaud like madmen at the capitol theater. Those things are just the same as before. So what more would they want from us?”

Myk shook his head. Covered his ears. Curled up further beneath the bed in his flat.

Standing the next day felt awkward, like trying to write with frostbitten fingers. More awkward still was Myk’s proximity to the enforcer, who seemed to reek of blood and death, but circled his waist with odd, unpracticed gentleness. He recalled childhood stories of monsters that dwelled in graves, and could imagine easily that he was in the clutches of a _Mulo_ , or a vampire. But no imagination was needed to make his stomach turn in the enforcer’s presence.

Myk could remember Eliška’s part in their routine dances as easily as his own. He traced her steps across the office tiles, forcing his tired legs to move in a way that might do her grace justice.

The enforcer followed, though he fumbled at simple dance steps like a child.

“Start it over,” he said, and Myk halted his steps in response, and helped the enforcer to adjust his posture, nudging the direction of his feet and the set of his shoulders. In time, the enforcer could follow him with confident ease, albeit no elegance, as he never paused to glance at his shoes. Myk sensed that the enforcer might not be talented, but that he was a determined learner. Likely determined in all things – a climber who never looked down, but only forged forward. Each step across the office was swallowed with an eagerness that pressured the tempo.

Myk had felt his legs adjust to an upright posture. Standing in the warmth of daylight and mimicking the motions of his life before, he felt a crack not unlike the broken skin of his abused hands, only deeper – as Myk seemed to shudder apart with every step, and old Mikhail stirred awake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -i wanted to thank my readers for their interest and comments. i'd love to hear your thoughts on the latest chapter!  
> -expect more bits of myk's past to be revealed (and more random slavic/balkan cultural references)


	5. Chapter 5

Once dismissed from the office, Mikhail walked back to his flat, absorbing his heightened perspective on the halls. The cameras still watched from above, but not from a significant distance, and no voice crackled at him from the speakers.

Inside the flat, he paced, collecting his fresh memories of the enforcer’s dance practice. Could it be called practice?

Whatever it had been, Mikhail found it _ironic_ to the core. An official in a regime that had stamped out culture at every turn was now expected to dance in private events. The people’s culture had not been erased, then; only its accessibility restricted. Restricted to those who had claimed to “execute” the people’s will, who had simply snatched enough power to do as they pleased.

And the enforcer was once so quick to imply that Mikhail’s passion had no “purpose.” Thinking on it, Mikhail bitterly shook his head. The violent little man behind those gray lenses disgusted him.

And who was he _really,_ if he bungled a simple couples’ dance like a barnyard animal? Likely no more than some backwater thug whose wealth, ethnicity, and sychophantic loyalty to the new regime had granted him the blind luck to find status, and the gall to seize it greedily. Mikhail cringed at the memory of the enforcer’s hand on his waist; brushed his clothes with quick swipes as if to shake off filth. His hands still stung from too many hours soaking in chemicals, and his limbs ached in the aftermath of misuse.

Mikhail wanted to forget the pain. He stretched his stiff legs, and his mind drifted to the elements of _Kazachok_. He wondered if he’d retained the power to perform it. For so long, he had convinced himself that he could not dance. Fear had put him in that place – a pit, where he had kneeled reduced. With better memories in mind, he aimed to crawl out of it.

He spun, he sprang, harsh, painful motions turning fluid and alive. The flat had become his stage, the camera his spotlight. Where his tired body flailed, the discipline of muscle memory soon righted it. Unleashed from gravity, from the floor, he leaped. Soared.

The camera clicked along.

In Mikhail’s mind, Eliška was singing again. Her voice slithered down beneath the bed and into his dreams, coaxing his mind’s eye awake. The moon was shining upon her auburn hair and the subtle folds of her dress. She stood somewhere above him, intoning her love for the prince of her fantasies.

Those same verses had been hummed into his chest on their first night in the gaudy townhouse, entangled on the bed they had chosen to share. Mikhail still remembered the vibration of her voice against his skin. The soft abundance of her hiked-up gown and unpinned hair.

The bed had been their sanctuary in those moments, holding their love like a linen cocoon. Mikhail had believed that they would share it for the rest of their lives, but only five years had passed before armed men stormed into their home….

“Your help was useful. I passed the evening by with no trouble in the slightest.”

Standing at the office threshold, Mikhail raised a brow at the enforcer. So he had retained enough to not embarrass himself, it seemed.

“Come in now. There is something I brought you. Consider it a bonus.”

Approaching the desk, Mikhail clasped his hands behind his back. With fewer hours spent scouring the floors, they didn’t burn as terribly.

The enforcer rummaged in his desk, and he produced a dark bottle of balsam liqueur, then filled a pair of shots and passed the first to Mikhail.

“To labor with purpose,” the enforcer toasted with a nod, and a quiet snicker. Bemused, Mikhail nodded back and downed the shot. The heavy, herbal flavor smoldered in his throat, and seemed to radiate warmth through his insides.

“No stranger to good spirits, are you?” the enforcer remarked. “You should take the bottle with you. Something to look forward to after your work.”

After an evening spent scrubbing away bootprints – and later “refreshing” the enforcer on his dance steps – Mikhail brought the balsam to his flat, setting it in the corner next to his bed. As he folded his work shirt in preparation for a shower, the speaker above his door suddenly crackled to life.

“A discrepancy has been detected in your living space. An officer will be dispatched to investigate.”

He stared up at the camera, too surprised to move. Immediately, he remembered the balsam that he had just brought. He wanted to look back at it, to discern if the camera had fixated on it, but he knew that he shouldn’t dare. Better to appear stupid than guilty.

He wondered how long it might take before the “officer” arrived, and considered reaching for his work shirt to keep himself warm in the meantime. Yet the camera above had completely frozen him, as if he stood in the presence of a sleeping bear, _waiting_ for the moment that it might come alive and charge him.

A sharp knock on the door startled him from that frozen state. He opened it before any hesitation could be perceived.

Two armed men lunged into the flat. A rifle butt slammed into Mikhail’s head. He fell, and the floor blanked his mind with a single hard impact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -rating has been changed to mature because the next few chapters will probably be more intense than what i've put out so far


	6. Chapter 6

Mikhail woke to a gloved hand gripping his jaw, and bright light shining into his forced-open eye.

“Good enough. No serious injury has come to him.”

His head throbbed, but as the gloved hands released him, he blinked and found that he could see clearly. He was sitting up in a metal chair. Across a white table sat a thin man in a suit. Dark walls penned them in, and a camera stared down from the ceiling.

 _All this for a bottle of balsam?_ Mikhail’s thoughts ran together and knotted into chaos. If the Premier’s own enforcer had deemed the bottle acceptable, then why had he been seized from his flat like a terrorist?

“One of the State’s surveillance workers discovered contraband in your living space,” said the thin man. “I am here to question you about the nature of your infraction. How did you obtain the contraband?”

Mikhail opened his mouth, but paused. Pointed to his throat.

“Write your answer, then.” Within seconds, the interrogator had slapped a sheet of paper and a pen onto the desk. “Writing will be no trouble for us in this matter. Very useful, in fact. Very good.”

Nodding, Mikhail took up the pen, and answered.

_The contraband was a gift._

He hoped the short answer was enough, but could easily imagine that more would be demanded. The interrogator’s beady eyes were blazing with a hunger that even the enforcer lacked. Mikhail sensed that there was much for this man to gain.

“You must tell me who exactly gifted it to you.”

The camera on the ceiling whirred. Exposed below it, Mikhail worked the pen across the paper.

_The Premier’s enforcer._

“Aha. Your honesty is appreciated. Few would dare to implicate such a powerful figure.”

As a smirk worked through the thin man’s thin lips, Mikhail palmed a bead of sweat from his temple.

“The Premier’s enforcer is a man of talent and diligence, well respected by the State and its people. But his rise into authority came with unprecedented speed…and those of us established within the State bear certain _concerns_. His character must be considered.”

Mikhail stared, recalling floors soaked in blood, those gray lenses looking down at him while he scrubbed it away. Would the interrogator be surprised to learn of the enforcer’s bloodletting? Would it be safe to confess any of it, safe to leave it out?

The interrogator’s questions arrived far before Mikhail was prepared to respond.

“What is the nature of your relationship with the enforcer?”

The first simple answer that came to mind was scrawled down in a hurry.

 _Professional_.

Halfway through the word, he heard a click as the interrogator pressed an unseen button, and the camera hung still, unseeing. The paper was snatched from Mikhail’s hands and replaced with a fresh one.

“I would ask you to reconsider your answer.”

Mikhail jolted upright, locking wide eyes with the hard stare that met him across the table. Where he would have asked “why,” his mouth only twitched in confusion.

“We have already reviewed the footage collected from the statehouse. The Premier’s enforcer has invited you behind closed doors on several occasions. He has bribed you with alcohol. He has also never spoken a word of his involvement with you to anyone else.”

The interrogator steepled his fingers. Mikhail listened in silence, and clutched the edge of the table as if to keep from falling.

“We have already drawn our own conclusions from this behavior. You are simply here to confirm them, that we may proceed with certain charges against the enforcer, and have him brought down. So – I will ask you several more questions. You will answer ‘yes’ to them all. Then you may freely return to your labor. Of course, if you do not comply, we will have you punished accordingly for the possession of contraband, and for conspiracy against state affairs. And we could certainly find some other means of dealing with the enforcer, in that case.”

The interrogator pressed another button, and the camera above resumed its clicking.

“Would you say that the enforcer’s conduct _overstepped_ professional boundaries?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -i honestly wanna rename this work to kazachok  
> -as a warning, some anti-roma language comes up in this chapter. the author has nothing against roma (also my ethnicity/family is about a third roma)

Mikhail had written it fifteen times: _Yes_ , scrawled over the page until the interrogator had finally asked enough, and took the pen away.

“Truly a shame, that such a promising official would do such things. With a gypsy charlatan of _your_ background, no less. But I can see that you were not a consenting party in his games?”

Mikhail quickly shook his head.

“Of course you weren’t. Flawed as you are, the enforcer is still the worse degenerate by far. I will enjoy seeing him removed from his office.”

Gloved hands pulled Mikhail from the table, and the interrogator sat back, smugly brushing his sleeves. Mikhail considered turning, looking to the face of the person holding him. But the thought of being met with a black mask made his heart hammer. He stared, teeth gritted, at the interrogator instead.

From under the table, the interrogator had produced a small file, and eyed its contents.

“There is still the matter of your infraction. I see that you have received two marks already. Engaging in unpatriotic displays. Aiding an enemy of the State. Possession of contraband shall be your third.”

Mikhail was shoved into one corner, and forced down against a small stool. When he reached for purchase on the wall, his arm was wrenched behind his back. The gloved figure above kept him still.

The interrogator disappeared through the only door. Mikhail looked down at his bare chest – at the thick circle of scar tissue that spanned it, crossed through with an equally thick line.

When the interrogator returned with a white-hot iron, Mikhail knew that another line would soon cross it.

Mikhail could become Myk again, with the iron even hotter and sharper than before, its course slower. It could burn up his old memories like hellfire on tinder. They could blacken and curl away into nothing. Mean nothing, because what could silly Mikhail’s life _possibly_ mean, in a world so different from the one he had danced and dreamed in?

Myk could not dream, and he could not dance. The interrogator had been merciful in his judgment, allowing him to continue his work at the statehouse. He could still clean the floors, even if each brush of the work shirt against his chest sent him hissing in agony. He could focus on the dull ache of hand against rag, against floor. He could push until it meant nothing.

He could watch as men in heavy boots thudded over the freshly-cleaned tiles and arrived at the enforcer’s office. Myk did not want to see their heads, see the masks they might be wearing, but glanced up just enough to notice rifles in their arms. He heard the charges barked out through righteous, grinning jaws, heard the clink of shackles, and the shuffle of feet that had fumbled through dance steps. They had stepped too far, and stepped away now toward the dark end of the hall. Myk doubted they would ever return, and scrubbed the final imprints clean with haste.

Winter stormed on, rattling the statehouse windows and clawing icy fingers past every threshold. Myk could chip the ice off the doorways, and wipe the slush away. Often, the doors were left open, as laborers shouldering heavy furniture stamped in and out. Each new desk hutch, server rack, and thick-framed painting bore the same destination: the enforcer’s old office.

When the interrogator arrived in a fresh, blue suit to inspect the new furnishings, Myk scrubbed his bootprints away with greater force than his tired body had ever summoned.

The bread he consumed that evening came up in the night. He stared, dazed, at the mess on his floor, blinking. The camera above him clicked, and Myk could suddenly remember that leaving his room in disarray was bound to bring citations.

Barely-closed burns across his palm hurt fresh as he scrubbed the vomit clean. When the work was done, he felt almost ready to be sick again. Clutching his stomach, he rolled beneath his bed. Attempted to sleep. Images of the interrogator’s leering face began to rattle in his brain.

Myk could fight past sickness, push the nausea down as sharp sanitizer stung his nose. He could scrub through a sea of stains on tile, never looking up. Citations never came down.

Night arrived early, as usual. Alone in the statehouse halls, Myk worked toward a large window not far from the interrogator’s new office. He was wiping away a glob of what appeared to be spit, and he wondered if the newly-instated official might have left it there – certainly knowing who would clean it.

A hard slam against the window made him lurch away, and stumble to an unsteady stance. In the total darkness beyond the glass stood a cloaked woman. She was pointing to the window latch with a pale, shaking finger.

Openmouthed, Myk backed away. The movement of the work shirt across his chest sent a sharp jab, sharp enough to make him flinch and clutch at the fabric. The woman slammed the glass again, calling out in muffled bursts of speech. Unable to stop himself, Myk looked to the nearest camera. Its lens was still fixed on him, but he wondered when it might turn toward the source of disturbance….

Another slam on the glass redirected his attention, and he was shocked further as the woman ripped open her cloak, baring her chest to the bitter outdoors. Across it rested a mess of scars.

Myk could not aid an enemy of the State. Foolish Mikhail had tried such a thing, when his foreign lover was about to face justice. Both of them had suffered worse for it.

But Myk could stare fixedly at the camera above him. Enough that the woman followed his gaze, noticing the camera herself. In an instant, she disappeared from the window, consumed by the expanse of black. Myk couldn’t dare to look up at it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -i figure this chapter was kind of a doozy, lots of dark twists. i hope my readers still enjoyed it!  
> -also i wanted to share some of the music that's been inspiring this stuff. first off is kazachok of course, then anna netrebko's version of song to the moon, and definitely some revamped papers, please tracks. links are below  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC82T7losqw  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwuNqcKUxto  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOo5RpZiI4c


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -so this update took a while! i was really trying to decide what should be done with act 2 of this story (idk i feel like the 1st act wrapped with the change of leadership). but here we are with some fresh conflict :]

A late meeting had left Myk with extra work in the night, cleaning every inch that had been spotless only hours before. He could not dare to look up at the black windows anymore, did not want to consider who might be waiting outside at this hour. Streaks of liquid sanitizer took on morbid shapes across the tiles, knitted themselves into the expanse of scars that had bloomed over bare skin. Myk could not think of that woman in the dark, but he _saw_ her, and he could not stop _seeing_ ….

The worst of the mess remained at the front door, where scores of officials had tracked mud and slush over threshold and floor. Myk considered that filth was preferable to blood. He felt almost grateful that the interrogator’s time in power had produced none of the latter. None so far. Or maybe none that Myk would be made witness to.

Light glowed past the door, brighter than the sputtering streetlights. Almost brighter than daylight. Myk was drawn to it, and pushed the door open, eyes wide to receive the strange spectacle above him.

A pale beam shot upward from a distant horizon, its glow diffused but still distinct against a black sky. Myk saw an object flying overhead, flung by some impossible force. Dark against the glow, but shimmering with bits of fire, it appeared rectangular. Man-made. A giant slab of rock or concrete?

The object shot across the sky. Over the statehouse it flew, vanishing from Myk’s sight as if it’s wild appearance had never happened.

The air-rending bang that followed it reasserted the realness of it, so strongly that every window at the front of the statehouse was shattered, the doors blown back, the streetlights rocked and extinguished. Myk was thrown against the front steps, and quickly scrambled inside, coming eye-to-broken-lens with a camera. Myk could not be sure past the ringing of his ears, but the camera’s clicking seemed over.

He turned back toward the front door. Once black, the sky glowed faintly green. The streetlights remained dark.

The flat could be his refuge. Myk dashed over floors strewn with glass, climbed past toppled furniture, and descended the basement stairs. No lights brightened the halls. When Myk arrived at the door, he realized it was still bolted shut. He whirled to seek the nearest camera, though in total darkness they were impossible to find. Listening for clicks, he heard none. No power, no watchful lenses. No flat to retreat to. Myk was alone, unobserved, separated. Inside the flat was his food, clothing…. Everything that had been granted to him was indefinitely locked away.

Myk could only wait. To occupy himself, he brushed the glass from the threshold and main hall, though if the cameras still worked, he would have received countless citations for poor work. Finding every piece of glass with no light to see them was impossible.

Eventually, deep green night bled away into pale morning. The door to Myk’s flat had not unlatched, and no one arrived to track fresh bootprints into the statehouse. Shattered windows gazed out at an empty, silent street. Daylight obscured the distant glow that had pierced the night, made its presence questionable, but Myk stared in its direction nonetheless. No functioning cameras remained to stop him. Nothing would stop him…if he chose to….

Myk shook his head. Refused to see the front door as a door. It was a wall, and his foolish choice to break past it in the night was bad enough. If he tried to run free, any hope he had for mercy would be forgotten.

But the day crept on. The statehouse sat empty. Myk’s flat remained locked, and he began to wonder if mercy was already far beyond his reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -new developments in the plot were inspired by the kyshtym disaster. more references to the unfortunate side of soviet history will be coming soon  
> -as always, feel free to tell me your thoughts. and thank you all for your patience with this chapter


End file.
